‘Zero hour’ at Bapu’s alma mater for reversing poor performance

Board students have to study for an extra period to improve their results. One of the oldest educational institutes in the country, it is now struggling to improve the performance of the students in the Boards. Last year, the school was served a notice for its below 30 per cent result in the Class X exams.

The institute is among the total 968 government and grant-in aid schools in 25 districts across the state to be served notice by the Gujarat State Secondary Education Board.

Constructed in 1853 by Kernel Singh, this school has not only witnessed the making of the Mahatma, but has also topped the charts in the state. Only very few schools like the Karansinhji High School, which is over 100 years old, and the Baisaba Girls School enjoy a similar status.

“These are historic schools, but their results are a cause of concern now. Over the years, the performance of these schools has not been encouraging. For the same, notices were served in November and the schools were asked to prepare an action plan and implement the same to improve the standards,” said GSSEB secretary R I Patel.

He said, as a first step, notices were being served and each school was asked to prepare an action plan considering their limitations and the problems they were facing.

“Though it would be different for each school, but the board has laid out a general outline,” said Patel.

The common action plan includes holding parents meet on a regular basis; make parents prepare the answer sheets of their wards and conduct faculty exchange programmes with other government schools with good track records, upgrade laboratory and library in cases where required, and find innovative ways to generate students’ interest in studies.

Most of the schools have submitted their action plans to the board.

“The simple steps like introducing extra period, which on rotation will cover subjects that students find more difficult, have already been under implementation,” said Patel.

According to Rajkot District Education officer K D Bagda, the government and grant-in-aid schools in Rajkot generally get students from poor primary educational background. ‘

“We have observed that the main reason is that these government schools attract students only from the poor financial background, who have poor a primary educational background. To strength this base would remain the focus of the action plan for Rajkot district too,” he added.